How to Quit Without Feeling S**T

435 Pages·2008·3.08 MB·English

by  Patrick Holford

Copyright

Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12515-9
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the
public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Patrick Holford with David Miller and Dr James Braly All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
www.hachette.co.uk
Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the people who have tried,
and failed, to break free from addiction. We hope this book
will give you the missing piece you have been looking for.
The advice and insights offered in this book, although based on the
authors’ extensive experience, are not intended to be a substitute for the
advice of your doctor or other suitably qualified person.
Neither the publishers nor the authors accept any responsibility for any
legal or medical liability or other consequences which may arise directly or
indirectly as a consequence of the use or misuse of the information
(nutritional or otherwise) contained in this book.
You are advised to seek medical and/or nutritional advice from a
suitably qualified practitioner about the treatment of your specific condition
and/or before changing or ceasing any recommended or prescribed
medication or nutritional or other treatment programme. You are also
advised to seek medical and/or nutritional advice from a suitably qualified
practitioner before taking any medication or nutritional supplement(s) or
adopting any other treatment programme.
About the Authors

Patrick Holford BSc, DipION, FBANT is a leading spokesman on nutrition
in the media, specialising in the field of mental health. He is author of 30 books,
translated into over 20 languages and selling over a million copies worldwide,
including the Optimum Nutrition Bible and Optimum Nutrition for the Mind.
Patrick Holford started his academic career in the field of psychology. In
1984 he founded the Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION), an independent
educational charity, and was involved in groundbreaking research showing that
multivitamins can increase children’s IQ scores – research that was published in
the Lancet and the subject of a Horizon documentary in the 1980s. He was one
of the first promoters of the importance of zinc, antioxidants, essential fats, low-
GL diets and homocysteine-lowering B vitamins such as folic acid.
He is director of the Food for the Brain Foundation and director of the Brain
Bio Centre, the Foundation’s treatment centre for people with ADHD and
autism, depression, dementia and schizophrenia, and those recovering from
addiction, where a nutritional approach is used. He is an honorary fellow of the
British Association of Nutritional Therapy. He teaches, researches and pioneers
nutritional approaches to mental-health problems.
Patrick’s work in addiction Patrick has had a major interest in addiction
since the 1970s when he graduated in psychology. In his holidays he worked in
treatment centres, ranging from halfway houses in the East End of London
(whose residents would sometimes resort to hairspray to get their fix) to
residential treatment centres for professionals at the other end of the social scale.
He also worked in a treatment centre for heroin addicts.
He later specialised in mental illness, from depression to schizophrenia, and
became convinced that nutrition was the vital missing key, since the brain not
only depends on, but is literally built from, nutrients commonly lacking in our
Westernised diets. He studied the approaches of the late Dr Linus Pauling, a
twice Nobel prizewinner, and became the student of Dr Abram Hoffer, who
pioneered nutrition-based approaches to addiction back in the 1960s, with
amazing success. David Miller PhD has worked in the addiction field for 30
years. He was associate professor of addiction studies at Graceland University in
Missouri, where he was on the faculty for eight years. Before that he taught
addiction studies at Park University in Missouri for 11 years.
David’s work in addiction Over the last 30 years David has practised
addiction counselling in private practice, in an intensive outpatient treatment
programme, in a detoxification programme, in a family intervention practice and
in a food addiction programme. He has also acted as consultant to numerous
treatment centres.
The focus of his work and research has been on finding effective treatment
methods to aid those for whom traditional treatment has not worked. His
research has led him to the conclusion that many of these people are not without
motivation but are attempting to cope with physical problems that interfere with
their ability to stay clean or sober. He has developed strategies for increasing
sobriety skills and has pioneered nutritional approaches for preventing relapse
that address the physiology of addiction.
has been in recovery from alcoholism himself since 1974. Since that time, he
has had a desire to pass on what he learned the hard way to those people for
whom staying sober is most difficult. His own recovery was extremely difficult
for several years. He struggled with hypersensitivity, mood swings, irritability
and anger outbursts, even while working as an addiction professional. After
several years he found relief from the most disturbing symptoms by taking
amino acid supplements recommended by a colleague. This put him on a search
for more effective ways to relieve abstinence symptoms. He worked with
different types of addiction, including food addiction in people with type 2
diabetes, most of whom struggled with abstinence symptoms that lasted over a
long period of time. He pursued and utilised various methods of reducing those
symptoms, the most successful being the nutritional strategies we offer you in
this book. Several years ago David met Dr James Braly, who has researched,
improved and refined nutritional therapy. Dr Braly, David and his wife Merlene
have worked as a team committed to furthering this work. Merlene, an expert in
addiction and a skilled writer and communicator, also contributed greatly to the
writing of this book.
Dr James Braly has specialised in alternative and nutritional treatments for
numerous chronic conditions, including addiction, for 30 years and is currently
researching nutritional approaches for addiction. Dr Braly has authored many
books including Dr Braly’s Food Allergy and Nutrition Revolution, Dangerous
Grains, The H Factor and Hidden Food Allergies. He has helped establish
nutritional treatments in many medical clinics and treatment centres in the US.
James’s work in addiction Working with David and Merlene Miller, James
Braly has pioneered and developed a highly effective nutritional therapy for
addiction. He conducted the first semi-quantitative study of efficacy and safety
of intravenous and oral nutritional therapy for recovering alcoholics. He
introduced and popularised testing for and treating hidden (IgG) food allergies,
the concept of leaky gut syndrome and the importance of lowering homocysteine
– factors that affect many people recovering from serious addictions.
During his clinical years in the 1980s, James often made use of high-dose
supplements and vitamin and mineral therapy to help addicted clients through
severe withdrawal symptoms while coming off coffee, sweets and other
addictive foods. Years later he was approached by the Millers to research and
develop an intravenous nutrient formula and protocol of diet and supplements
that could rapidly reverse sobriety symptoms in recovering alcoholics and drug-
dependent clients. For several years he has focused exclusively on helping those
with some of the worst addictions, who have struggled to become and stay drug-
free or sober.
It is the combined expertise of the authors that makes this book unique.
Patrick Holford provides the benefit of his extensive study and experience with
optimum nutrition; David Miller has many years of direct experience working,
with Merlene, in the field of addiction; James Braly applies his knowledge of
nutrition and medicine to the problem of addiction. What they have created
together is an easily understandable and highly effective new approach that will
enable you to free yourself from your dependence on substances that keep you
from being healthy and happy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all we would like to thank the amazing Merlene Miller, who took all
our material and painstakingly pieced it together in a clear way. We think of her
as the ‘fourth’ author, and deeply thank her for her weeks of devotion to this
project.
We would also like to thank Dr Hyla Cass, co-author with Patrick of Natural
Highs, for her permission to use certain sections of the text and figures in this
book. Our thanks goes to Oscar Ichazo for his permission to use the material on
the Doors of Compensation in Chapter 5. Also, thank you to Jane Nodder for her
permission to use material on eating disorders (this appears in the appendices,
which are on our website www.how2quit.co.uk).
We are grateful for the work of Kenneth Blum, whose research into the
addictive brain has been invaluable to us and has laid the foundation for our
approach to healing the addicted brain. We are also deeply grateful to the other
pioneers in nutritional medicine such as Julia Ross, author of Diet Cure and
Mood Cure, Joan Matthew Larson, whose book Twelve Weeks to Sobriety has
helped thousands of people, and Dr Abram Hoffer, the first pioneer of a
nutritional approach, who guided us in our work. Dr Joseph Hibbeln’s path-
breaking research on essential fatty acids and brain cell membranes helped guide
us in this very important area of research. We are also indebted to Dr William
Hitt for his pioneering work in intravenous nutritional treatment for addiction.
We would also like to thank the many scientists and addiction experts who
checked and advised us regarding various sections of the book, especially Dr
Joanne Lusher from London Metropolitan University.
Also thanks to Gaby, Patrick’s wife, for her support and feedback during the
months of early mornings and late nights researching and writing this book.
David would like to thank his family for their continuing support. We would also
like to thank Jan Sloan, Jane Heywood and Bev Youngman for their help in
manuscript preparation, as well as Ruth and Monique for help with research, and
all the team at Piatkus/Little, Brown, especially Gill Bailey, Jillian Stewart and
Jan Cutler for their support, encouragement and sharp editing.
CONTENTS

Copyright

Dedication

About the Authors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART 1 – HOW YOUR BRAIN BECOMES ADDICTED
1 Are You Ready to Quit?
2 How Your Brain Makes You Feel Good
3 How You Become Dependent
4 Are You Avoiding Pain?
5 The Stress-sugar-cigarette-stimulant Trap
6 Prescription Drugs are Not the Answer to Addiction
PART 2 – THE 12 KEYS TO UNADDICTING YOUR BRAIN
7 Rebalance Your Brain with Amino Acids
8 A Healthy Brain Needs a Healthy Gut
9 Raise Your Methyl IQ with Vitamins and Minerals
10 Rebuild Your Brain with Essential Fats
11 Balance Your Blood Sugar to Gain Energy and Reduce Cravings
12 Repair Your Brain with Antioxidants
13 How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
14 Solving Food Allergies that Make You Crave
15 Rejuvenate Your Liver
16 Find New Pleasure in Life by Raising Endorphins
17 Generate Vital Energy: The Chi Factor
18 Get the Past Out of Your Future
PART 3 – HOW TO QUIT YOUR ADDICTION